“ f iver Kerka, fays he, whofe perennial current hathes the foot
“ o f the city, has an iiland, in which hail never falls. This
river fifties rumbling on every fide, from dropping caverns,
where marble is produced-; and crouds o f people go there,
to fee the prodigy or its waters changing wood into Hone.
“ T o the, O 1 Sibenico, this river brings eels, the fleih o f which
produces no malignant fever; and before it falls from its great
catarafl, the exquifite trout is found, that feeds on gold. Fierce
1 dogs inhabit along the banks, which growl at the Turk and
his lubjeft Morlacks only, and are ready to tear them to
pieces. The marihy lake fupplies from feven to feven rears,
“ vail numbers o f eels for our ufe. The crabs likewife with a
' hundred feet, called Schilk, o f a palms length, fwim before
us. The crowned Dentice are found o f more exquifite tafte
“ near this city than in any other place. And it is but juft
that thefe do honour to the fituation; for here the moil noble
fiihes o f the iea meet, in ihoals, to pay their court to the
“ king, wandering about in their paflure; and fometimes the
fi£h that inhabits the fand, comes tamely upon the dry land.
But a more wonderful creature was once feen here, for a
“ marine unfociable man Was caught. The fea nouriihes for
us near its whirlpools, the Kotoragne * remarkable for their
large fize j and its rocks underwater are fo rich, that branches
o f coral grow on them. Far from the fea within land, we
“ have fait waters where fait is cryftalifed. T h e fame o f the
noble fweet juice, obtained by incifion on the iiland o f Srim-
cane, (a ) is fpread over the world; and the continent poffeifes
* I found no body at Sibenico who knew what kind of fifli this Kotoragne is.
Th e general dialefl of this poem is not undetftood there, and refembles none of
thofe now ufed in Venetian Dalmatia.
n ieifes ilill more glorious qualities; for there the manna falls
*' in honied dew. There the women boldly dare to cut the li-
js gaments o f their foetus, which lives notwithilanding and walks
“ (h) . And here thofp who were wounded in the head, and
whofe brain was cut afunder, have lived a year and a day
** after,”'
Among the particularities o f Sibenico mentioned in this curious
piece, the marine unfociable man, that was taken, ieems to
me worthy o f obfervation. O f the two fpecies o f manna taken
notice o f by the writer, the firit is certainly that which proceeds
from the fraxinus, by means o f incifion, as is practifed in the
proper fealon in Calabria, Apulia, the Maremme and Provence :
but this is fallen into difufe in Dalmatia. The other is probably
that farinaeious fubilance united with the. dew, which is
annually gathered in the neighbourhood of Cracow, and makes a
fmall article o f trade between that city and Warfaw. We have
iomething o f the fame nature, in the months o f Auguil and
September, at Cartila near E'fte in the Paduan territory.
Pietro Difnico took the greateft part o f thofe hints o f natural
hiftory from the manufcript elegiac verfes o f Giovanni Nardino,
Canon o f Zagabria, fome o f which are alfo inferted in a man*-
fcript work o f Tomeo Marnavich, but not exprefled with a
fcrupulous nicety, in the illyric paraphrafe. Nardino takes
notice o f the produce o f manna, and o f the coral fiihing thus:
Manna filo , Sibenice, tuo felicibu s afris
Ambrofas tribuit, nettareafque dapes.
The